No, we’re not talking about any new circles on Dorset hillsides, but a discussion which came up in a certain part of Facebook where know-nothing know-alls congregate. 

Chat turned to a rather unusual crop circle that appeared at Coploe Hill, near Ickleton in Cambrideshire, during the 2006 season. And wasn’t it a biggie.

Photograph by Stephen George.

Of course, one of the group’s resident ‘experts’ was going to chime in with their opinion of who was responsible. We already knew what they were going to say, but was it going to Robin … or Hamish … or Robin … or Hamish? Robin, of course…

Now, you may well be asking who is ‘de master’? It’s a term used by grovelling sycophants and croppie groupies to describe the admittedly top drawer circle maker Julian Richardson, and, to be fair to Knight, Richardson did originally work in the East Midlands in the area between Cambridge and Northampton. However, we thought it hugely unlikely that Richardson would have returned to Cambridgeshire to produce a pig on a hillside.

To us, the circle had all the hallmarks of a legally produced piece. First, its size suggested a good amount of manpower had been employed. Second, its appearance was rather clunky and certainly not something you would expect of Richardson’s expertise. Third, had it been newbie circle makers in the dark, you would have expected them to produce other less ambitious formations before tackling the pig, at least some of which would have been discovered and reported.

So, using that miraculous thing called a search engine, we went off and did some digging into the origins of the piggy. It didn’t take us long to reach an answer.

The guilty parties were a Hertfordshire based design company called, funnily enough, Black Pig. In July 2006 the following press release appeared on their website:

The text in full:

IN A FIELD OF THEIR OWN – BLACK PIG REVEAL THE BIG PIGTURE

A strange pig phenomenon has suddenly appeared in a wheat field just southwest of junction nine of the M11. The first sighting of the spectacular 250 metre wide ‘pig circle’ which is the equivalent size of two and a half football pitches was reported on Sunday 16th July 2006.

Amazingly the pig pattern which is the first of its kind has appeared in conjunction with the 10th birthday of Royston based full service creative agency, Black Pig. Just before the pig circle appeared, a group of twelve individuals, all of human form had been spotted acting strangely in and around the field. The group was heard referring to the leading one as Sarah-Jane, as they moved in convoy around the field.

Coincidently, a small number of Black Pig staff were taking part in a team building event near the field on Sunday and Managing Director, Sarah-Jane Higgins commented on the pig phenomenon: “It really is unexplainable but has made a huge impact in the area. It looks fantastic, whoever or whatever created the pattern has clearly worked hard to put it there and it is amazing that it is in the same year as our 10th birthday – how bizarre!”

As more and more spectators travelled to see the pig circle, eye witnesses reported seeing the group of twelve flying around the field in a helicopter type vehicle only to disappear later in the day, leaving the lasting question of where will they appear again?

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20060926154501/http://www.blackpig.co.uk/news-crop.php

So, there we have it. The Ickleton pig was produced by a creative agency as part of a team-building exercise. The publicity they received can’t have done them any harm as they’re still going today.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering why the name Ickleton may seem familiar, it is because it was the site of the legendary Mandlebrot Set crop circle from 1991.